the only piece of luggage we ever lost was at the hands of air france. they had made a big show of tagging the bags with their own bar coding system. but when we got to rome one was missing and we were told that the new barcode system didn't work yet. all show and no go.
the bag had actually made it to the airports in rome, so perhaps the french are off the hook a bit. i had tried to go back to the baggage claim for a last look but the guys with the machine guns chased me away.
unfortunately, the bag lost contained my clothes. even though it was discovered 2 days later, i think the french and italians conspired to allow me a few extra days of wandering monaco and the south of france in my wife's clothing. it took 5 days for the bag to catch us in corsica, where i proudly donned male attire and vowed here-to-for to always pack in gender mixed fashion.
all things multiply to the point of starvation.
(--Budge--)